TRS chief calls for united efforts to stop Pulichintala

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, MAY 25. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief, Mr. K. Chandrasekhar Rao, has asked Congress and TDP leaders from Telangana to learn a lesson from their counterparts in coastal Andhra and rally together for stopping the Pulichintala project.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Mr. Chandrasekhara Rao said it was time they opened their eyes and saw how coastal Andhra leaders of Congress and TDP were coming together on the Pulichantala issue. This was a test case for Telangana leaders.

He lashed out at the Government for filing criminal cases against four Congress MLAs for their attempt to stop preliminary work on Pulichantala although it was party workers who damaged drawings and threatened engineers at the project office. At the same time, he condemned the violence saying the TRS would not brook anything but peaceful protests.

The TRS leader wanted the Government to give a forthright reply to his question as to why irrigation projects had not been constructed in Telangana to utilise the region's share of 277 tmcft of Krishna water in stark contrast to the coastal Andhra region where 650 tmcft had already been utilised. In spite of this imbalance, the Government seemed bent upon going ahead with the Pulichintala project, he said.

He came down heavily on the Minister for Primary Education, Mr. Kadiam Srihari, for his reported remark dubbing the Telangana movement a fight by upper castes. Asserting that the TRS represented a cross-section of people representing all castes, he urged people of Telangana to be wary of attempts to divide them along caste lines and not to be carried away by sops announced by the Government. These sops were squarely aimed at wooing voters in the coming panchayat elections and would be ignored once the polls were over.

Referring to the media interviews given by the Home Minister, Mr. T. Devender Goud, on the issue of Telangana, the TRS leader said the Minister had skirted fundamental issues such as implementation of GO 610 for repatriation of Andhra employees. He said he was prepared for an open debate on Telangana with Mr. Goud.

On the TDP's Mahanadu starting in Vizag from May 27, he appealed to all party MLAs from Telangana to bring pressure on the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, to introduce a resolution in the Assembly recommending to the Centre the creation of a separate State.

Meanwhile, a large number of leaders belonging to different parties joined the TRS. They include Mr. Kunja Biksham, former CPI MLA from Burgampahad, Mr. Ravindranath Gupta, convenor of All India Vasavi Mahasabha, Mr. Gajjala Narahari and almost his entire team of Nationalist Congress Party office-bearers in the Twin Cities.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : 140 Govt. junior colleges sanctioned in backward
           mandals
Next     : A tome on the aviation history of the Deccan